Kham
Khamis one of the three traditional Tibetan regions, the others being Amdo in the northeast, and Ü-Tsang in central Tibet. The original residents of Kham are called Khampas (Template:Bo), and were governed locally by chieftains and monasteries. Kham presently covers a land area distributed between five regions in China, most of it in Tibet Autonomous Region and Sichuan, with smaller portions located within Qinghai, Gansu and Yunnan provinces.
Densely forested with grass plains, its convergence of six valleys and four rivers supported independent Kham polities of Tibetan warrior kingdoms together with Tibetan Buddhist monastic centers.[1] The early trading route between Central Tibet and China traveled through Kham,[2] and Kham is said to be the inspiration for Shangri-La in James Hilton's novel.[3]
Settled as Tibet's eastern frontier in the 7th century, King Songtsen Gampo built temples along its eastern border. In 1939, an eastern area of Kham was officially established as Xikang Province of China.[4]- ↑ Jann Ronis, "An Overview of Kham (Eastern Tibet) Historical Polities", The University of Virginia
- ↑ "Kham", http://mystictibettours.com/about-tibet/
- ↑ Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namedGarri - ↑ Yudru Tsomu, "Taming the Khampas: The Republican Construction of Eastern Tibet" Modern China Journal, Vol. 39, No. 3 (May 2013), pp. 319–344
